Thank you, Madam Speaker. I want the alcohol strategy to produce better health. We have some very troubling indicators for heavy alcohol use in this territory. For example, the rate of heavy drinking, which is defined as having four or five or more alcoholic beverages in a single sitting, is 43 percent in the NWT. That compares to 19 percent across Canada. Better health means that people are not falling into the poor health outcomes of excessive alcohol use and also not falling into the personal despair of excessive alcohol use. To that end, the department has hired a federally funded senior advisor on the alcohol strategy who started work in August 2020. She is completing the following tasks: setting up a representative working group to guide the development of an alcohol strategy; reviewing feedback from an alcohol evidenced action workshop held in March on this issue; preparing a full workplan and engagement plan on this issue; and this work will be moving along with public consultation that will begin early next year. Thank you.
Julie Green on Question 483-19(2): Alcohol Strategy
In the Legislative Assembly on November 5th, 2020. See this statement in context.
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